On the evening of December 31, 2020, William Lewis McBride, 61, a man from Rochester, New York, was inside a home on Bardin Street when the quiet of New Year’s Eve was shattered by gunfire. Just after 6 p.m., police rushed to the area following reports that multiple shots had been heard. When officers arrived at the residence—described as being on Bardin Street between Ridgeway Avenue and West Ridge Road—they found McBride inside with a gunshot wound to his upper body. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators quickly determined that the shots had come from outside the home. Police said the shooter fired more than a dozen rounds into the house from outdoors, with estimates placing the number of shots in the range of roughly 10 to 15. Despite multiple people being inside at the time, McBride was the only person struck, turning what could have been a mass casualty event into a single, devastating loss.
The killing was counted among Rochester’s homicides for 2020, and the randomness implied by the scene—many people present, one person hit—left detectives working to understand why that house was targeted and who had opened fire. The case was assigned to investigators with the Rochester Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit, who were still trying to determine a motive and identify a suspect as the initial reports were published in early January 2021.
In the immediate aftermath, there were no announced arrests. Police indicated that they were looking for information that could point to the shooter or shooters, urging anyone who knew something about the gunfire on Bardin Street to contact authorities. Even as the city turned the page to a new year, the investigation remained open, centered on an unknown assailant who fired into a home and disappeared into the night.
